Schools in the United Arab Emirates have started to announce revised operating hours during Ramadan 2015. Most of them will operate with reduced academic hours by up to two hours.
The new schedules will mainly concert students between Year 1 and Year 13. In addition, timings for foundation and primary stage students are shorter in some schools.
The school day will start at 8 a.m. and continue until 1 p.m. However, these timings tend to vary depending on the school and the age group of the students. For instance, foundation stage students in Kings’ Al Barsha will start their classes at 8.15 and finish at 12.45 p.m. Therefore, parents will need to check the revised schedules themselves for more accurate operating hours.
School days in UAE usually start at 7.45 am or 8 am and finish at 14 pm or 15 pm. This means that during the Holy Month, students will spend one or two hours less a day at school.
Employees in UAE will also follow reduced timings during Ramadan. Usually, their schedule is two hours shorter than its regular daily length. In other words, the working day is reduced from 8 hours to 6 hours.
Earlier this year, researchers from Sharjah Planetarium shared that the fasting hours during this year’s Holy Month are expected to be the longest in over three decades. Scientists have estimated that this Ramadan, fasting hours in the GCC region will last for approximately 15 hours and 15 minutes. The last time, this timing was so long was 32 years ago. Moreover, Ramadan fasting hours in the Gulf region are expected to continue to become longer over the next couple of years. The turning point is predicted to be the year of 2018, when fasting hours will slowly start to decrease in length.
